


Dean's Year

by RoseWinterborn



Series: Little Sister Winchester [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, dad!bobby, kinda domestic, winchester family drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-19 14:05:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8211199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseWinterborn/pseuds/RoseWinterborn
Summary: Lou learns how to person, and the world spins on.





	1. May

Bobby returned from Lincoln in the late afternoon, dead tired. Lou met him at the door, eyes bright with relief, and he wished he could have found it in himself to smile at her before hauling himself to his room to sleep off the trauma of the last few days.

The next morning, to his distaste, found him chained to his desk with phone calls. There were, understandably, more demon attacks than ever, and hunters all over the country were panicking and calling him up to find out just what the hell was going on.

Lou crept into the room just after noon with a plate in her hand, which she offered to him silently. He took it with a nod of thanks, occupied with the shrill sound of a hunter in New York state asking why there had been four possessions in one town over the course of only a few days.

Lou took a seat on the little couch under the window, appearing to wait patiently for him to hang up.

“You need something?” Bobby asked, stirring the lasagna around on his plate with his fork for a moment.

“Can I, um, read?” she asked, voice squeaking slightly. She cleared her throat, and looked at the floor. “These books, I mean. They’re, they, uh. They look interesting.”

Bobby glanced at his library, stacks and stacks of organized chaos that had taken over his house over the past few decades. “If you want,” he said. “That’s what they’re for, I guess.”

Lou smiled, cheeks pink (a healthier color than the sallow, jaundiced look than she’d been sporting for the last week) and got up to peruse the stacks silently, fingers ghosting over the books’ spines thoughtfully.

“Is all of this stuff real?” she asked finally.

Bobby bit back the sarcastic “what do you think?” that came to his lips, and gave her an actual answer instead. “Some of it. Some of it’s just crap and superstition. Gotta do some digging when you need information sometimes.”

Lou nodded thoughtfully, and carefully extricated a particularly old leatherbound book that had once had the title stamped across the cover in gold leaf. She flipped through it, brow furrowing.

“Is this in Latin?” she asked finally.

“Probably,” Bobby said. “A lot of lore is, especially for spells.”

A wistful look crossed her face. “I always wanted to learn Latin,” she said softly. “I was going to take it in college.”

Bobby’s heart ached, but he didn’t say anything. Lou didn’t either for a moment, before she sighed. “I managed to get enough money for one semester,” she said, “since I wasn’t…staying on campus...” She said that slowly, like she was choosing her words carefully. “I figured if I worked hard enough I’d be able to get another semester after that.”

She put the book back on the stack, biting her lip. “But I—“ she stopped, and her voice got very, very quiet. “It was too hard. Too expensive.”

The ache in his heart grew, but before he could bring himself to say something, Lou sniffed loudly and wiped her eyes. “Fuck it. I’m here now.” She gave him a watery smile. “Do you, um, speak Latin?”

Bobby nodded, speechless. Christ, was she ever a Winchester, burying pain like a corpse in her own chest.

“Could you teach me? I learn fast, I promise.”

Bobby went to answer her, then paused. “Why?”

Lou shrugged. “It’s something to do. And I’ve always wanted to learn.”

He was quiet for another minute before he finally nodded. “I think I’ve got some notes around here somewhere,” he said. “I’ll see if I can find them.”

Lou beamed at him, and Bobby couldn’t help but smile back.

 

After so many years of dealing with Dean’s disregard for books, Lou’s passion for them was refreshing. It became routine for her to pad down the stairs every morning around ten and then eventually into his office, two cups of coffee in hand and a book tucked under her arm. Even on mornings that Bobby was busy with cases, she settled onto the couch with the Latin texts and studied them quietly, mouthing some of the words and grinning to herself when she thought he wasn’t looking.

Latin turned out to be one thing of many that Lou found fascinating. Bobby watched as book after book of obscure myth disappeared and reappeared a week later, scraps of paper peeking out from between the pages. Lou took to carrying a notebook around with her and scribbling in it whenever she seemed to find something interesting.

It was a little like watching Sam research for a case, save for the expression of rapt enthusiasm on Lou’s face. Slowly, Bobby stopped worrying about her so much. Stopped trying to figure out why she was so interested in the books he kept in his study.

It didn’t look like she was trying to become a hunter.

Just a kid.

 


	2. June

Sam and Dean came around more often now, every two weeks or so, the sound of the Impala on the gravel outside becoming more and more familiar a sound.

The boys stopped by in the first week of June, Dean with his same cocky cover-up grin and Sam looking more tired than ever. Even so, Sam lit up when Lou met him at the door, a wide grin on her face.

She greeted him in Latin, looking proud of herself, and Sam laughed before stumbling through a return greeting, his conversational Latin pretty rusty after a few years of only needing the language for exorcisms.

Lou laughed at him, and hugged him tight before letting him inside.

Her greeting to Dean was a little more distant, more of a nod, but her smile was genuine, even if Dean’s wasn’t. Nothing about Dean seemed genuine anymore; it was too hidden by fake smiles and the repeated phrase “shut up, I’m fine.”

 

“How are you, Lou?” Sam asked. “It’s been a while.”

Lou nodded. “It has.”

She’d taken him upstairs to show him her room. She was oddly proud of it, from the purple sheets she’d bought herself with some of the money left in her checking account from before Azazel had abducted her (now that she had a place to stay and the promise of meals, she was a little less stringent with her spending) to the rows and rows of quotes on her wall, written on colorful notecards and decorated with little flourishes of black ink. It was the first time she’d had a whole room that felt like it was hers, and she wanted to share it with someone.

She smiled at Sam. “I’m doing fine,” she said. “Really good, actually.”

“Good,” he said, nodding. “Just curious, are you thinking about going back to school? You said you miss it last time, I just wondered.”

Lou stopped, and frowned. “I—can’t,” she said finally. “I don’t have the money.”

“Have you looked online?” Sam asked. “It’s a little cheaper. I mean, I think. I didn’t take classes online.”

“No, of course not, you were too good for that, Mr. Stanford,” Lou teased. She sighed, and sat down on her bed. The mattress creased under her weight, which had improved quite a bit over the last month, filling out the hollows under her cheekbones and the spaces between her ribs. “I don’t have a computer, either,” she said. “Kinda hard to take classes online without one.”

“And anyway,” she said, perking up with considerable effort and missing the sorrowful look on Sam’s face. “I already live in a library, sort of. I can just study stuff here.”

She hopped up off her bed, pulling out her latest conquest of knowledge, and started to show Sam what it was.

 

“Quit pacing, Dean,” Bobby sighed. “If you don’t want to be here, just go.”

The older Winchester boy just glared at him, unusually sullen for once, and, if possible, paced harder. “I can’t just go, Sam wants ‘ _to see Lou,_ ’” the bitterness in Dean’s voice was nearly palpable.

“What do you have against her, Dean?” Bobby asked. “She’s just a kid. She’s your _sister.”_

“I don’t have a sister,” Dean snapped. Bobby glared at him.

“You’re just upset because your dad wasn’t perfect, aren’t you?” Bobby asked. Dean refused to answer, and Bobby huffed, sitting back in his chair. “Well, for the record, you’re missing out. She’s smart as a whip. Good sense of humor, works hard.”

“What’s with _you_ , Bobby?” Dean sneered. “What’s so damn special about your damn charity case?”

Bobby didn’t laugh, though he wanted to. “Charity case? Christ, Dean, she’s about as much of a charity case as you are.”

Dean didn’t look convinced.

Bobby sighed. “You know, Dean, this world is crap. It always has been, always will be. And I don’t just mean the monsters. I mean everything. Shitty parents. Poverty. Even you know what that’s like.”

It almost looked like Dean flinched.

“Well, so does Lou. And if any of us deserve second chances, it’s her, because far as I’m concerned, she hasn’t done anything to earn the shit that happened to her, she just dealt with it. Just like you. Just like Sam. So excuse me if I care, because she damn well deserves it after everything she’s been through.”

Dean just stared at him for a long minute before he turned on his heel, muttering, “I’m going to the garage.”

“I think if you’d try talking to her,” Bobby called after him, “You’d like her!”

Sam came into the room shortly after, watching Dean through the window and frowning. “He’s still upset, isn’t he?”

Bobby nodded. “What did Lou want?”

“Showed me her room. She’s pretty happy with it.”

“Good,” Bobby said gruffly. “She should be. It’s hers.”

Sam looked at him curiously, taking a seat on the couch. “You’re still planning on keeping her around?”

“’Course,” Bobby said. “She doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Doesn’t seem to want to leave, neither. I’ve asked.”

Sam nodded, eyes dropping in thought. “Have you thought about, um. Her future? At all?”

Bobby paused. “I ain’t her dad,” he said.

Sam looked amused, but didn’t say anything.

“Why?” Bobby asked. “Is she?”

Sam shrugged. “No, not that I can tell. I mean, she keeps saying she misses school, but she’s not planning on going back. I just wondered…” he trailed off, and Bobby rolled his eyes.

“Wondered what, Sam?” he asked.

“I was just wondering if you were trying to turn her into a hunter,” Sam confessed.

Bobby froze. “I sure as hell ain’t,” he finally gritted out. Sam held up his hands in surrender.

“Okay, okay, I just wondered. It’s just that she’s reading all the lore, she’s learning Latin, she’s settling in. It looks like she might want to just stay. Take up the life.”

Bobby growled a string of curses. “Over my dead body,” he muttered.

 

Sam and Dean stayed that night, so Lou put a couple of pizzas in the oven and stirred up a pitcher of iced tea, though she knew she was the only one that was going to drink it. She set the table and went to let everyone know it was ready—Bobby and Sam in the study, Dean seemingly nowhere to be found, though the impala was in the driveway still.

“I’ll get him,” Sam said. “He’s probably in the garage.”

Bobby went ahead to the kitchen, looking troubled.

“What’s wrong?” Lou asked. A little tremor went through her gut, and suddenly her hands were shaking.

“Lou, you’re not—“ he stopped, started again. “You’re not trying to become a hunter, are you?”

She stared at him, jaw working for a minute before she squeaked, “no?”

“You don’t sound so sure,” Bobby said.

“I—I don’t—know--,” Lou stammered. “I don’t—“

She stumbled backwards, catching herself on the doorframe, and stood there shaking, to Bobby’s alarm. “Lou?”

“Is—is that what you want?” she asked, eyes wide and caught on his face. “D-do you want me to be a h-hunter? I-I can—“

“No, Lou, Lou—“

Sam and Dean came in the front door, and Sam stopped fast when he caught sight of her leaning into the door frame, hyperventilating. “What’s going on?”

“I-I didn’t know you w-wanted me to—“

“Lou, we don’t,” Bobby said. “We’re not asking you to, could you calm down?”

Lou shifted, one hand going to her chest and the other tangling into her hair, threatening to rip it out of her scalp. Sam approached her slowly, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Lou?”

“I can’t hunt,” she whispered shrilly. “I’m a coward, Sam, I can’t—Monsters, a-and demons, and—“

Dean sighed loudly, and Bobby and Sam both shot him severe looks.

“Lou, we’re not asking that of you,” Sam said gently.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Bobby added. “I just wanted to know if that’s what you were thinking, that’s all.”

It took a long time for Lou to catch her breath again, Sam standing at her side with his hand on her shoulder. The room spun around her like a kaleidoscope of reality, warped and unnatural and suddenly she didn’t feel quite so safe and at home.

“Why would I want to hunt?” she rasped when it was over, picking her way over to a chair and sitting down shakily. She noticed dimly that Bobby had rescued the pizzas from the oven and put them on a cutting board on the table.

“Lou, we didn’t know,” Sam said. “With all the lore you’ve been reading, and the Latin, we didn’t know if you were planning on hunting. We were worried.”

“I’m a coward,” she repeated, looking at him incredulously. “You saw me at Cold Oak, with Ava, and with my own fucking mother, here, I can’t _do_ anything. I’m not a hunter.”

“Maybe you ain’t a hunter,” Bobby said. “But you ain’t a coward, either.”

Lou snorted, scrubbing her face with the palms of her hands. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she muttered. “Can we just eat?”

Questions answered, Bobby acquiesced, and if her hands continued to shake for the rest of the meal, no one said anything. 

 

 

Lou trembled awake while it was still dark, the echo of the words _you’re no use to anyone_ rattling around in her mind. She sat up, hands clenched into fists, and got out of bed, putting on a sweatshirt over her pajamas and padding downstairs quietly.

Bobby was still in his study, and she froze. This wasn’t what she wanted.

“Trouble sleeping?” Bobby asked.

Lou scowled and shrugged.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” she said. She flopped down on the couch anyway.

Bobby didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t push.

“My mom,” Lou sighed, finally, staring at the floor. “She said I was ‘no use to anyone.’”

“Your mom was a crazy old bat,” Bobby pointed out.

“Yeah, I know.”

“So. Why does it matter what she said?”

Lou looked up at him for half a second before staring at the floor once more. “She was right.”

Bobby made a frustrated noise. “She was _not,”_ he snapped. “You’re a human being, Lou, you’re not _made_ to be _of use._ ”

Lou’s eyes burned, and she rubbed at them, dislodging the tears and wiping them away. “But I can’t do anything,” she said. “I’ve had one semester of college, and I couldn’t even do that right, I lived in the friggin library!”

“The library?” Bobby asked.

Lou sniffed. “Foster parents kicked me out when I turned 18,” she muttered. “Said I was an adult, I could take care of myself.”

She heard him muttering under his breath, and it sounded like a lot of swearing.

“But I can’t,” she said. “I can’t take care of myself. I’m staying here, mooching off of you, not doing anything and _not being useful to anyone.”_

Bobby sighed and hung his head, and Lou didn’t dare to move, puffy eyes fixed on him where he sat behind his desk. When he spoke it sounded angry. “We don’t want you to be useful, Lou, we want you to be happy.”

“I don’t understand,”she croaked.

“Sam didn’t take care of you in Cold Oak because he thought you’d be useful. I didn’t give you a place to stay because I thought you’d be useful. You’re family, now, Lou. You don’t owe us anything.”

She didn’t reply except to sniff loudly.

“What do _you_ want, Lou? Because if we can, we will help you. You shouldn’t have to be trapped in this like the rest of us. You can have a life. Hell, you can go back to school if you want, and take Latin from a professional.” Bobby’s eyes crinkled a little at the corners, a small smile evident only in his eyes. “We didn’t ask you to be a hunter because we wanted you to be useful. We asked because we were worried.”

Lou sniffed again and wiped her eyes. “What if I did?” she asked. “Want to be a hunter, that is?”

Bobby sighed. “We’d try and talk you out of it,” he admitted.

“Why?”

“Because it’s dangerous,” Bobby told her. “And you shouldn’t have to be unsafe anymore.”

Lou was quiet. “I want to help,” she said softly. “But I don’t want to be a hunter.”

“If that’s what you want,” Bobby hedged, “we won’t stop you.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

Silence filled the room, but it wasn’t tense, just patient. Lou was thinking, hard, and Bobby was letting her, just sitting quietly at his desk and waiting for her to speak.

“I want to do what you do,” she said finally. “The way you know everything, and help them.”

Bobby laughed hoarsely. “I don’t know everything, kid,” he said.

“But you know a lot,” Lou insisted. “And I want to do that. I don’t want to kill things, but. I have a good memory. I can help.”

Bobby just nodded. “Okay.”

 

When a hunter in Phoenix needed to know how to kill a Lamia, Lou was the one to find its weaknesses.

When a green hunter in Washington got ahold of his number and called asking about vampires, Lou was able to tell him that he needed to behead them, not stake them, even though Bobby couldn’t remember talking about vampires with her.

When Sam and Dean got in trouble with a rabbit’s foot, Lou was the one who found the spell to remove the curse.

 

When Sam and Dean came back for the Fourth of July, Sam was truly and utterly pissed.


	3. July

“What the hell, Bobby?” Sam asked, seething. “I thought we were trying to get her to _not_ be a hunter!”

“I ain’t gonna tell her how to live her life, Sam,” Bobby replied. “She said she doesn’t want to hunt. Just help.”

“That’s crap and you know it,” Sam scoffed. “She’s gonna end up a hunter, and she’s gonna end up dead.”

“Such faith,” a dry voice said from the doorway. Dry, maybe closer to acid.

Sam froze, squeezing his eyes shut. “Lou—“

“I _don’t_ want to be a hunter,” she said. “I don’t. I’m not brave enough, or tough enough, for that. But I can do research, and I can answer the phone. I can be useful.”

Bobby sighed internally. There was that word again— _useful._

“You could have a life, Lou,” Sam said sadly. “You could be normal. Go to school, get married, have a family.”

“I’m not ever going to be normal,” Lou said, and Bobby didn’t see a flicker of regret on her face. His heart swelled a little at what she said next: “And I already have a family.”

Sam looked at Bobby, pained. “She really is our sister,” he said.

Bobby nodded. “I’ve been trying to tell you boys that for a while now.”

Lou smirked, but it didn’t reach her eyes and fell off her face when Sam left the room to “go find Dean.”

“He’ll come around,” Bobby assured her. She just nodded and left the room.

The boys didn’t come around that day. In fact, Sam disappeared for a few hours and came back bitter and a little drunk, to Dean’s obvious concern.

“What’s the matter with him?” Dean asked after they’d watched Sam stumble up the stairs to his room.

“He’s trying not to lose both of you,” Bobby said simply. Dean didn’t say anything in reply.

Sam wasn’t the only one who got drunk that night.

 

The next morning found them in the study, studiously not talking to each other. Bobby was examining the Colt—it was high time they got it working again, if they could—while Dean made himself busy making bullets. Lou was curled up on the couch with a book on demons, of all things, taking notes in her battered notebook.

Sam, the only one missing, came down from his room around eleven, showered and dressed and carefully put together, making it obvious that he was falling apart.

“Hey,” he called, voice rough.

“Hey, what’s up,” Dean replied. Lou watched their exchange with unreadable eyes and a furrow in her brow.

“Might have found some omens in Ohio,” Sam said. “Dry lightning, barometric pressure drop…”

“Sounds thrilling,” Dean grunted.

“Plus a guy blows his head off in a church, and another goes postal in a hobby shop before the cops take him out.” Sam entered the study looking oddly smug, like he’d pulled one over on them even though he was simply describing a potential case. Lou’s brow furrowed further. “Could be demonic omens.”

“Or it could be a suicide and a psycho scrapbooker,” Dean quipped, looking unimpressed and going back to his bullets.

“Yeah,” Sam said, looking frustrated. “But it’s our best lead since Lincoln.”

“Where in Ohio?” Dean asked.

“Elizabethville. It’s a half-dead factory town in the Rust Belt.”

“There’s gotta be a demon or two in South Beach,” Dean grimaced.

Sam smiled at him humorlessly. “Sorry man. Maybe next time. How’s it going Bobby?”

Bobby looked up from the Colt only briefly. “Slow.”

“I gotta tell you,” Dean said. “It’s a little sad seeing the Colt like that.”

“Well, the only thing it’s good for now is figuring out what makes it tick,” Bobby told him.

“So what makes it tick?”

Bobby gave Sam such a withering look that he held up his hands in surrender. Dean cut in hurriedly with, “So if we want to go check out the demons in Ohio, think you can have that thing ready by this afternoon?”

Lou couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not, but he certainly got to Bobby, who glared up at him acidly. “Well it won’t kill demons by then, but I can promise you it’ll kill _you_.” He pointed the half-constructed pistol at the older Winchester, and Lou snickered. Dean glanced at her, half a smile on his face that might have been fond.

He grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Come on, we’re wasting good daylight.”

“See you Bobby,” Sam said.

Lou sat up a little, but Sam didn’t even look at her.

“Hey,” Bobby called. The boys stopped and turned to look at him. “If you boys run into anything— _anything—_ you call me.”

They nodded in assent. Sam turned and walked out. Dean hesitated in the doorway, looking at Lou, who was looking back at him quietly, waiting. In the end, he gave her a short nod and followed his brother out of the house.

Bobby went back to the Colt, but Lou seemed distracted for a few minutes before she turned to him and asked, “Is it because I want to—“ she almost said _be a hunter,_ but that wasn’t quite right. “—because of yesterday?”

Bobby sighed and shrugged, wondering how many times and to how many people he was going to have to explain the younger brother’s frustrations. “Sam feels like he’s losing control,” he said. “Dean’s still dying and doesn’t care, and he thinks you’re gonna get yourself killed. Not that you will,” he added sharply, looking up. “But he doesn’t know what to do.”

Lou frowned, then quirked her lips into a grim half-smile. “He’ll come around?” she quipped.

Bobby huffed, and nodded. “Sooner or later.”

 

Bobby went out back with the Colt for target practice and came back with a statuesque blonde that immediately put Lou on edge.

“Who are you?” Lou asked.

The woman’s eyes flashed to black and back, and Lou felt all the blood run out of her face. “B-Bobby—“

“She’s a demon, Lou,” Bobby said. “But she’s not gonna hurt you. Because if she does,” he shot the demon a dirty look. “I will exorcise her ass.”

The demon rolled her eyes, and smiled slyly at Lou. “Ruby. Pleasure. And you are?”

Lou didn’t answer. She just walked away on shaky legs, heading for her room, with one last disbelieving look at Bobby.

She stayed there until she heard his truck leave the driveway a few hours later.

On the fridge she found a note—

_Gone to help Sam and Dean. Back soon._

_-Bobby._

Lou threw the note away, made herself a sandwich, and went back up to her room. She closed and locked the door, and didn’t let herself sleep until the truck pulled back into the driveway the next day. She met him at the door, stumbling a little, but she had to be sure. Had to be sure the demon hadn’t hurt him.

“Are you okay?” she demanded. Bobby gave a weary laugh.

“I’m fine, kid.”

“You’re sure? That _thing_ didn’t do anything?”

Bobby fixed her with a keen look. “What’s wrong?”

Lou gulped down a breath, clenching her hands. “That was a demon. You just—trusted it. Like that.”

“Lou,” Bobby said. “There’s a difference between trusting something and working with it. She helped me fix the Colt, that’s all.”

Lou choked on emotion for a second before simply launching herself at Bobby, wrapping her arms around him and holding tight.

“Don’t get hurt,” she croaked. “I like it here. I _can’t_ lose this.”

Bobby seemed to be frozen, before a little tension leaked out and he put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere, kid,” he promised. “You’re stuck with me.”

She pulled away, nodded, and wiped her eyes, seeming reluctant to look at him. Then she sniffed, squared her shoulders, and put forth a watery smile. “I’m gonna go make some sandwiches,” she said. “Then can we go over Latin stuff? The verbs are giving me some trouble.”

Bobby nodded, looking a little shellshocked by her emotional whiplash. “Yeah, we can do that. Let me go get cleaned up.”

Lou’s eyes darkened nearly imperceptibly, but she nodded back and forced another smile before going to the kitchen to make the sandwiches she’d promised.


	4. August

Sam and Dean showed up again about halfway through August. Sam was visibly starting to wear thin, even to Lou, whom he seemed to have forgiven and for whom he always seemed to have a smile.

“What’s wrong?” she asked finally. They were in the kitchen, Sam leaning against the counter uncomfortably, Lou seated at the table turning a bite of pasta over with her fork.

“Nothing,” Sam sighed, running a hand through his hair. Lou fixed him with a look.

“Really?” she asked flatly.

Sam rolled his eyes, smiling just a little. He crossed the room and sat down across from her at the table. By the time he spoke, his smile was gone. “You know about Dean, right?”

“That he’s gonna die?” Lou said. “Yeah. Bobby told me, back in May.”

“I’ve been trying to help him,” Sam said, “trying to save him, but it’s like he doesn’t even care. He doesn’t care that he’s dying, that his year is already a quarter of the way gone.”

“His year?” Lou asked. “He only had a year?”

Sam nodded.

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered.

“He doesn’t care, Lou,” Sam said, and his voice cracked, foreshadowing tears that appeared a few moments later.

Lou reached out and took his hand. “It’ll be okay,” she promised.

Sam sputtered a wet laugh. “You must be new here,” he said.

“That’s probably why your bad luck can’t kill my optimism,” she said, smiling.

Sam shook his head, his own smile turning rueful. “Give it time.”

 

Lou found Dean in the garage a while later, doing what appeared to be unnecessary maintenance on the Impala. She stood there silently for a while before he noticed her, fingers curling and uncurling nervously. Sam she knew, and trusted. He was a big person-shaped puppy, all long hair and soft eyes and gentleness, but Dean. She didn’t know what to make of Dean yet.

When he finally caught sight of her, his shoulders hunched in defensive irritation and he scowled. “What do you want?” he asked shortly.

“Just to talk,” she said, slinking a little closer.

“Sam talked to you,” Dean guessed. He refused to look at her, instead turning the wrench over in his hands. She shrugged.

“He’s my brother,” she said pointedly. “He does that.”

Dean sighed. “Look, I’m sorry, I really am. But just because we share a dad does not make us family.”

Lou shrugged. “I don’t really care whether you want me or not,” she said frankly. She hoisted herself up on the counter, hissing a little as it pulled on the scar tissue on her shoulders. Dean watched her, eyes unreadable, until she’d settled and was looking at him again, eyes the same shade of no-nonsense hazel as his dad’s had been. He looked away.

“I’m here because of Sam,” she said.

Dean growled. “I don’t want to hear it,” he grunted. “He can bitch to as many people as he wants, but it’s not gonna change a damn thing.”

“No,” she said, shrugging. “It’s not.”

He stopped short, confused.

“No one can help you until you let them,” she said. “Psych 101, Dean. You have to accept that there’s a problem before you can fix it.”

“Of course there’s a problem!” Dean snapped, before he stopped himself.

Lou’s eyes were nothing but serious. “I’m glad you’re aware,” she said dryly. “Now what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing,” Dean grated out.

“Why not?”

“Because if I do, Sam dies. Or did he tell you that part?” Dean glared at her. The tiniest furrow appeared in her brow.

“That can’t be all there is to it,” she said.

“That was the deal,” Dean told her. “Sam lives, I get one year. I try to get out of it, he drops dead.”

Lou chewed on her lip for a few minutes, thoughtful. Finally, she sighed. “You guys are a mess,” she said.

Dean huffed. “How long did it take you to figure that out?”

“Like twenty-four hours,” Lou said. Dean shook his head.

“Did you just come out here to yell at me for hurting Sam’s feelings?” he said.

“No,” she said. “I didn’t want to yell at you, just try and talk sense into you.”

“You’re not the first,” Dean said quietly.

“I figured.”

Dean stuffed his hands into his pockets and leaned against the car, staring at the ground. “I’ve been kind of a dick, haven’t I?”

Lou nodded. “I wasn’t gonna say anything, but yeah. You have. Why?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

Dean looked at her sharply. She shrugged. “You don’t know me,” she said. “Like you said, just because we have the same father doesn’t make us family. It’s fine.”

“But—“

“Besides, you’re dying in nine months. What’s the point of holding a grudge?”

For a split second, Lou saw underneath his mask, saw how vulnerable Dean was, how scared, before his eyes hardened and he set his jaw, looking away.

Lou hopped off the counter. “I’m gonna go make dinner. What are you hungry for?”

“Wouldn’t say no to a burger,” he said. His voice was casual, but there was an underlying strain that made Lou certain that she’d gotten through to him somehow, even if he didn’t want to admit it.


	5. September

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise bitches! (AHS gif here)
> 
> Sorry if this isn't up to snuff, I was tired of working on it and I wanted to stop being a disappointment. Enjoy!

Lou got a job at one of the libraries midway through September, claiming that she needed to feel more self-sufficient. Sam was overjoyed, seeing the decision as her taking a step away from hunting.

He couldn’t have been more wrong. 

Lou returned from work at nine thirty on a Friday night, pale as a ghost, and barged into Bobby’s study without any sort of warning. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked, alarmed, half standing already. She looked more frightened than she had while staring down the barrel of her mother’s gun.

“Witches,” Lou choked. “I don’t know where, but. At work,” at this she choked, eyes wide and glassy and welling with tears. Bobby waited for her to speak, anxious energy roiling in his muscles. “There was a hex bag, under the desk, and Jamie…”

The falling tears made Jamie’s fate clear. 

Bobby nodded, sinking back into his chair. “Okay.”

Lou tensed. “Okay? It’s not okay! My coworker is dead!”

“Cool it, idjit,” Bobby huffed. “I’m trying to figure out what to do.”

“We find the witch,” Lou said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. 

“How, Lou?” Bobby snapped. “I can’t play fed here.”

“We could call Sam and Dean,” she suggested. Bobby shook his head. 

“They’re in Ohio working on a werewolf,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “We’re on our own.”

Lou dropped her purse on the couch and sat down heavily, head in her hands. From the trembling of her fingers, it was clear that she was trying to keep it together and very nearly failing. 

“Did you see anyone strange behind the desk?” Bobby asked. 

Lou shook her head, not looking up. “I didn’t spend much time there today, so I wouldn’t have.”

“Are there security cameras?” he asked. 

There was a pause, then, “I think so?”

“Any chance you could get in to look at them?”

“Me?” Lou squeaked, looking alarmed.

Bobby nodded. “It’d be less suspicious if it were you.”

She dropped her face back into her hands with a groan. “I didn’t want to be a hunter,” she whispered. 

“One hunt isn’t going to make you a hunter,” Bobby scoffed. 

She glared at him from under her hair, and he just shrugged. “Buck up, buttercup,” he said. “Got work to do.”

 

So that’s how Lou found herself breaking into one of the locked rooms on the first floor the next morning before the library opened, trying every key on the chain she’d filched from her boss’s desk. 

God, she was going to get fired. 

One key finally fit and turned in the lock, and she pushed the door open to find a small room furnished with a desk bearing a computer and two monitors, as well as an uncomfortable looking futon and numerous Star Wars posters on the walls. The room was empty of people, so she sat down gingerly in the desk chair and shuffled the mouse. The screen lit up, prompting her to log in, and even though she’d been expecting it she felt like swearing. She pulled a sheet of paper out of her pocket and looked over the list before typing in “Siouxfallspubliclibrary.” Nothing. “Password.” Nothing. “12345.” Nothing again. The list went on.

“What are you doing?”

Lou nearly jumped out of her skin. “Nothing!” she squeaked, then cringed. “Um. Shit.”

In the now-open doorway stood a tall, lanky boy holding a cup of coffee in one hand and wearing a perplexed expression. “What are you doing?” he repeated. 

“I. Um. I wanted to look at the security footage. From yesterday,” Lou admitted, wincing internally. Maybe she should’ve come up with a lie, but she really couldn’t think of one.

“Why?”

“Reasons.” Christ, Lou, how old are you? Five?

“Okay, well. Until I get to hear one of your reasons, I’m not pulling up the footage. Get out of my chair.”

Lou jumped up and hovered behind the chair anxiously while the boy settled in. He paused and looked over his shoulder at her. “Get out of my office?”

Lou frowned at him. “Office? This is a storage closet.”

“Yes. It stores my office. Get out.”

She watched her chance at getting the information drift away from her and sighed heavily. “I want to find out who killed Jamie,” she muttered.

“Sorry, what?” he asked.

“I want to find out who killed Jamie,” she said more clearly, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’re probably not gonna believe me, but someone killed her.”

“She had an aneurism in the bathroom,” the boy said flatly.

“No, she didn’t,” Lou said. “Someone put something under the circulation desk that made that happen, I found it yesterday.”

He squinted at her, confused. “A biological weapon?”

She measured that. “Ish.”

He heaved a sigh and turned back to the computer. “You’re lucky I’m a sucker for conspiracies. I’m Blakely.”

She smiled faintly at the back of his head. “Lou.”

“Nice to meet you, Lou,” he said absently, clicking through till he found what he was looking for. “What time are you after? You said circulation desk, right?”

“I just need to know who was behind the desk before Jamie died,” Lou said. “And yeah, circulation desk.” She leaned hesitantly over his shoulder, watching the footage run. The camera was mounted behind the desk, giving her a clear view of the shelves under the counter. People passed back and forth in front of it for hours with no change, before Lou suddenly said “stop, back up.” Blakely did.

There was a woman standing behind the counter, one of the librarians, it looked like, talking to another woman standing on the other side of the desk. Lou could see the other woman’s face: she was tall, brunette, with high, narrow cheekbones and an angular chin. Whatever conversation they were having was friendly. With what looked like “before I forget,” the brunette pulled out her purse and rummaged through it, pulling something out and handing it to the librarian, who looked it over, then put it in a drawer. Lou didn’t watch the rest of their exchange, because she was too busy staring at the drawer; it was the same one where she’d found the hex bag. 

“Can you print out a copy of this?” she asked.

“Um, it’s a video, you can’t print—“

“No, just her face. I need a picture of her face.”

Blakely looked at her, eyebrow raised. “Going in for vigilante justice here?” 

“Something like that,” she muttered. “Please?”

She checked the time on the screen. “Oh shit, I’m late. I’ve got to go.”

“What do you want me to do with the picture?” Blakely asked.

“I’ll pick it up at lunch!” 

Outside the door, she ran into Laura, one of the local high school students, who smiled at her. “Good morning!” Laura said brightly.

“Morning,” Lou said, trying not to sound breathless. The other girl had startled her. 

“What were you doing in there?” Laura asked, looking over Lou’s shoulder at the door, brow furrowed. 

“I was just talking to Blakely,” Lou said. 

“Blakely? The IT guy?”

Lou nodded, heart pounding. Laura looked confused for a moment before finally shrugging. “Mkay. See you around!”

As she flounced away, Lou pressed a palm to her racing pulse, trying to catch her breath. Thank God that was over. 

 

The rest of the day was pretty quiet, all told. Lou went back to see Blakely at lunchtime, where he handed her a flash drive with strict orders to not lose it. She swore she wouldn’t and shoved it into her pocket before she left. 

 

She picked up groceries on the way home, and was putting them away when Bobby came in from the garage. “Any luck?” he asked.

“I got a face,” she said. “No name, though.” 

“All right,” he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.” She handed him the flash drive, and he disappeared into his study for pretty much the rest of the night. She finally took him a plate around nine, and asked how it was going. 

“Slow. Called around, asked if she looked familiar to anyone. Got a couple hunters said they’d get back to me.”

Lou nodded. “Then what?”

“We find out where she is, and we gank her,” Bobby said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

Lou paled. “We?”

“I need backup, Lou, and you’re all I’ve got.”

There was a tense silence as Lou took a long, shaky breath. “Okay,” she finally said. “Um. I’m going to bed. Let me know in the morning, if, um. If anything changes.”

 

Nothing did change. The next morning, Bobby was passed out in his study so she left for work quietly, flash drive back in her pocket to return to Blakely. 

He seemed to have been expecting her; when she knocked on his door, he met her with a half-smile and pressed a cup of coffee into her hand before gesturing for her to come in and returning to his chair. “Morning, Supergirl. How’s the vigilanti-ism?”

Lou was still staring at the coffee in her hand, perplexed, so he helpfully added, “You’re supposed to drink that.”

She scowled at him. “Slow,” she finally said. “I brought this back, though.” She passed him the flash drive. 

“Did you find her yet?” he asked. 

“Not yet,” she said. “We’re looking into it.”

“Ooh, we? There’s more of you?” Blakely leaned forward in his chair, eyes a little too bright in her direction, and Lou squirmed. 

“I have to go,” she said. “Um. Thanks for the coffee.” She tried not to make it look like she was rushing on the way out, but if she was being honest she was lucky she didn’t leave in a dead sprint. 

Lou spent the rest of her morning praying that Blakely wouldn’t come up out of his cave to try and talk to her. The senior librarian, noticing how antsy she was, put her on shelving duty for a while to give her some space, and Lou was grateful for the distraction. By eleven or so she was finally calm enough that she was comfortable working behind the desk so that the senior librarian could take her lunch.

As soon as the woman was out of sight, Lou checked every single one of the drawers and shelves under the desk, and that’s what she was doing when someone politely cleared their throat on the other side of the desk. Lou got to her feet so fast her head spun, but the dizziness wasn’t what made her freeze—the woman on the other side was. 

It was a tall brunette with high cheekbones and an angular chin. 

Words refused to come out of Lou’s mouth. 

“You’re not Candice,” the woman said cheerfully, tilting her head to the side with a friendly smile. “She must be off today.”

Lou forced a smile and nodded mechanically. “J-just me today,” she said. 

“Are you all right, dear? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

Lou shook her head. “No, I just, um. Stood up too fast. Head’s spinning a little, that’s all.” She put on what she hoped looked like an apologetic smile. “What can I help you with?”

“Oh, I just wanted to check these out.” The woman pushed a stack of books towards her, card laid neatly on top. 

Lou picked up the card, fingers trembling slightly, and scanned it, memorizing the name printed underneath the library’s logo. She checked out the books one by one, and asked the woman if she wanted a bag; she declined, and Lou smiled at her and told her that the books were due back on the second. 

As soon as the woman was out of sight, Lou slapped the “ring for service” sign on the desk and scrambled towards the staff lounge, where the senior librarian was just starting in on her lunch. Lou pled illness and said she needed to go home, which wasn’t a hard sell since she was still shaking and pale as a sheet. The librarian dismissed her right away, and she headed straight for the truck, phone up to her ear before she was even in the driver’s seat. 

“Singer Auto—“

“Edith Larch,” Lou said. “That’s the woman from the video.”

“Are you sure?” Bobby asked. 

“Positive. She came in again today.”

There was a heavy sigh, and the sound of shuffled papers and movement. “What time are you off?”

“I’m on my way home now,” she said. “I want to get this over with.”

“All right,” Bobby said. “I’ll be here.”

Lou felt sick the whole way back to the house, but she kept tamping it down, knowing that if she gave her fear an inch it would take a mile, and she didn’t have that mile to lose. After today, she could go back to being a coward, but for now she needed to be brave. She needed to be a hunter. 

Bobby met her at the door but she pushed past him, headed upstairs to change. 

“I’m not hunting witches in a pencil skirt,” she muttered. She heard him chuckle, and couldn’t help but smirk a little, even though she hadn’t meant it to be funny. She changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, swallowing over and over again to keep herself from throwing up. 

Bobby was still waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asked.

“Do I have a choice?” she asked.

“I wish I could say you did, kid,” he sighed. “Let’s go.”

It was the longest drive of her life. Bobby knew the address; he’d looked it up as soon as he’d had the name. Edith wasn’t quite a local, living a few towns over. Lou watched the roads pass her by and kept pushing down the panic inside her.

“Lou, you’re bleeding,” Bobby said. She looked down at her thumbnail, which she’d been chewing anxiously. A drop of blood rolled down the side of her thumb. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Bobby asked. “Because as much as I don’t want to go in there without backup, I can’t do this if you’re going to be fucking catatonic by the time we get there.”

“I’m fine,” Lou said. “I’m just…scared.”

“That’s a good think. Keep your reflexes sharp.”

She nodded, wiping her thumb on her jeans. She pressed her thighs together around her hands to keep from murdering more innocent fingernails as the world outside passed her by, and wondered if she would get to see it again after…just after. 

Bobby pulled the truck—one of the less damaged junkers from the lot—into a neat little driveway, which was already home to three different cars, each small, silver, and utterly mundane. Lou stared at those cars, at the sheer normalcy of them, and wondered if they were in the right place.

Bobby passed her a little handgun, and she started, staring at it then him with wide eyes. 

“Don’t point it unless you mean to shoot,” he said. Then he got out of the truck. Lou swallowed hard, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. When she opened them, she wasn’t afraid anymore.

At least, that’s what she told herself. In practice, she nearly faceplanted as she got out of the passenger seat, her legs jello-like and uncooperative. She tucked the gun into the back of her jeans and pulled her sweatshirt down over it. The metal was cold against her back. 

Bobby knocked on the door and waited. Lou could hear movement inside, and voices. Footsteps approached the door, and the knob rattled and turned. The door opened inward to reveal a familiar face.

“Oh, hello!” Edith said, smiling at Lou. “I didn’t know the library was making house calls now!”

“Unfortunately for you, we’re not with the library,” Bobby said. “I understand you’ve been having some fun with hex bags, Ms. Larch?”

Edith’s face went from friendly to stony in a fraction of a second. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do,” Bobby said. “Name Jamie Butcher ring a bell?”

“No.”

“Mind if we come in?” Bobby asked. “Wouldn’t want to make a scene in front of the neighbors.”

Edith’s eyes flicked to the houses across the street, and her lips pressed tight together. She stepped back, door opened a little wider. “Do come in,” she said coldly. 

Lou refused to look at her as she stepped across the threshold into the spacious entryway, feeling Edith’s icy gaze on her. 

“So are we gonna be civil about this?” Bobby asked. 

“I fail to see how this could in any way be civil,” Edith replied, “seeing as you’re here to kill me.”

“To be fair, ma’am, you killed someone first. I’m only here to return the favor.”

“If you’re referring to Jamie, she deserved it,” a languid voice said from behind them. “Little whore, always sleeping around with other people’s husbands.”

Bobby turned; Lou spun and locked eyes with the woman speaking, recognizing her from work. “C-candice?” she sputtered. 

The other woman offered her a sly smile. “Mary Stanton. A pleasure, as always.”

“My name isn’t Mary,” Lou said. 

“Is that what witches kill people for these days?” Bobby said. “Mrs. Dalton, I think you’d better work on your marriage.”

He raised his gun, but didn’t get a chance to fire it; Candice batted it—and him—away with no visible effort. He sailed across the room, hitting the wall behind Edith with a heavy thud and landing motionless on the floor.

Lou reached for her gun, but found herself unable to move, hand trapped halfway to her back. 

“Don’t be rude, child,” Edith tutted. “This is only self-defense.”

Fear washed over Lou, the more she tried to move and couldn’t. Tears gathered in her eyes. 

“Oh look, Edith, you’re making her cry.” Candice moved to stand beside Edith, looking short and plump in comparison. “Such a shame she’s a hunter. We could have used another member.”

“Are you sure?” Edith asked. “She may not have enough power to even light a candle.”

“Oh, you know who her mother was. Surely she has something.” 

The tears escaped. Lou struggled harder against the spell, muscles straining, starting to ache. 

“Well, there’s no use dwelling on it. She’ll have to be dealt with.”

“Of course.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Bobby didn’t bother to stand before raising his gun and firing, two shots that hit their targets almost in tandem. The women didn’t so much as gasp as they dropped, dead before they hit the ground, blood spilling from the corners of their mouths. It was a sight Lou knew she would never forget.

As soon as they were dead, Lou found herself able to move again, and the first thing she did was throw up, stomach acid and coffee joining the pooling blood on the tile. 

“Come on, Lou, we’ve got to go,” Bobby said. He grabbed her arm and dragged her, still heaving, out the door, into the junker, and started it. “That could have gone better,” he said.

Lou didn’t answer. Instead, all she could hear was Candice’s voice in her head on repeat: “You know who her mother was…”

It was a chorus that didn’t stop for a very long time.


End file.
